Hearing

June 17, 2019

I’ve told the story before, but today it wings its way back into my consciousness unbidden, but not unwelcome. 

It’s a family inheritance. I’ve worn hearing aids for nearly twenty years; it was getting increasingly difficult as I turned fifty to hear conversations, especially in the registers of women and children’s speech. Linda often said I had more of a listening than a hearing problem, but that was probably just the husband in me coming out. My paternal grandmother was so deaf in her last few years that not being able even to hear herself talk, her speech was reduced to mumbling. My father followed suit, and although he had hearing aids, they were only the analogue kind, and didn’t do much except squeal with feedback. Over the years, not being able to converse except with great difficulty, we watched helplessly as he struggled to make sense of conversations of which he could only hear bits and pieces. Eventually, he pretty much gave up. Having experienced much the same as he, I understood, but there wasn’t much I could do.

In March of 2012, he was fitted with new digital hearing aids. It was an amazing sight to behold as he suddenly came back to life, participating in conversations that had been all but impossible just weeks before. 

On Father’s Day, he was at his place on the lake with my mother, my brother and his family, surrounded by grandchildren, eating The Zweigle’s white hots he loved so much. I called him and had a wonderful conversation that we couldn’t have had the year before. I can’t remember the conversation itself, except that I told him I loved him, how much I appreciated his faith, wisdom, and guidance over the years. He said he loved me, and we hung up. 

A couple hours later, we got a call from one of my nephews. Dad had laid down for a nap, and my brother’s eldest son called to wish him a happy Father’s Day. When dad answered the phone, his speech was garbled and incoherent. They took him to the hospital, we rushed to his bedside, where he died a few hours later from a massive brain hemorrhage, never regaining consciousness. 

People have often told me how sad it must be to have lost my father on Father’s Day, and I always respond, “Not really. I had this marvelous conversation with him that would have been impossible just months before. We told each other of our love. How can I be sad for that? He was surrounded by those he loved and who loved him, only to be ushered into the presence of his Heavenly Father. What better Father’s Day could there be?”

In Christian circles, I often hear people speak of visions. They want to see God, to have some supernatural visitation that transports them in waves of ecstasy, but the most common Biblical word used to describe our relationship to God is not “to see,” but “to hear.” Christian faith is more auditory than visual. God spoke, and the worlds came into being. We are instructed to hear the Word of God, and St. John begins his gospel with “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...” (John1:1 & 14). When it comes to God communicating to us, hearing trumps vision every time. 

I would not wish to lose my sight, but if I had to choose, I would relinquish it before my hearing. Inability to hear isolates perhaps more than the inability to see. I am thankful tonight for my hearing, and for the assistance I receive for it with my hearing aids. They keep me connected. I am thankful for those three months of hearing toward the end of my father’s life seven years ago, and for that last Father’s Day conversation we had. I am thankful too, that years ago, I heard God speak words of forgiveness and love that my heart heard and to which I responded.